I really don't know what to do with DS8. You can't believe a word out of his mouth because he lies so much. Most of the lies he tells are such that there's really no way of knowing or figuring out whether he's lying or not. For instance, he'll tell me that there was pee all over the seat when he used the bathroom...and I'm pretty sure I was the person in it right before him and there wasn't pee all over the seat when I used it...but I can't be absolutely certain that no one else went in there in the 5 minutes since I used the bathroom. He lies frequently to try to get his siblings in trouble, lies about things the neighborhood kids say or do, lies about whether he did or didn't do something, just lies constantly. This has been going on for a couple of years at least. I have tried not engaging with him when I think he's lying so he doesn't get any positive reinforcement. I've tried consequences but with no effect (and it's impossible to be consistent with consequences when I don't know whether he's lying most of the time). We've had lots of talks about how we don't trust him because he's shown that he can't be trusted. A few times he's complained that he got in trouble for something he didn't do and we didn't believe him when he said he didn't do it, and I've explained that that's what happens when you lie all the time, but that doesn't appear to be sinking in. Is there anything else I can try short of just hoping someday he outgrows the lying?

I'm considering having my older kids (13, 10, & 8 ) go to a private school next year. The school uses A.C.E. which is a workbook curriculum that's reading intensive. My older two have done through Barton 8 and the 8 YO is in the middle of Barton 7 with a tutor. 13 YO is a pretty good reader, and the other two are decent readers (better than some of the kids who go to the school! some undiagnosed dyslexia maybe??) Anyway, I'd like to set up a meeting with the head of the school and request some accommodations, specifically asking that my kids can skip the spelling curriculum since they've done/are doing Barton, and asking that their work be graded by a teacher instead of them self-grading it as students are typically required to do (then the work is re-checked by a teacher afterwards). I'm looking for short videos and/or printed material that would support what I'm asking for--something on why typical spelling curriculums don't work for dyslexics and why it's not reasonable to expect them to be good spellers after Barton, and something on dyslexics and attention to detail or proofreading. I think it's pretty unlikely that the school will be willing to offer any accommodations, but I'd at least like to ask and see. Public school is not an option and all the private schools around here use A.C.E. so it's this or continue homeschooling.

Should I plan a lighter school year for a kid who's going to be doing vision therapy? My 10 yo's evaluation is mid-September. I have no doubt that they're going to recommend vision therapy. I'm not sure what to expect as far as how tired his eyes are going to be. They fatigue very quickly just doing a couple minutes of tracking exercises. Also, if a child's eyes are doing a lot of bouncing and losing focus when trying to track an object, is it likely that he's going to need vision therapy? This is my 6 YO...I think he's having at least as much trouble tracking as DS10 ever did, if not more.

I would also ditch the bins and go with more tray-like containers, and fewer of them. I found short & good sized plastic "bins" at Dollar Tree to use for this. I'd mainly put stuff that comes in bags (like bulk foods or snack foods that comes in bags) in those, and maybe extra spices and things like seasoning packets and tuna salad packets. Actually I used small short bins (about 5"x8" or smaller) from Walmart for seasoning packets. Use your bigger baskets for potatoes and onions, and put them wherever you like. I like mine on the floor but you could really put them wherever. I organize by category (so all the baking stuff is together, all the sauces and condiments are together, etc). I wouldn't bother with labels personally, just organize for your categories and then keep putting stuff in the same places. Our old house had a deeper pantry and it worked fine to do make rows going back several items deep. I rarely had trouble finding things (and then it was usually because DH shoved things in random places). The only issue I can see with a deep pantry is for the highest shelves where you can't reach anything that's not at the front, or if the spaces between shelves aren't tall enough to allow you to reach in and grab things from the back, but yours are plenty tall. It doesn't seem like the closet being wider at the front than the back would really be an issue either even if it looks odd--just make a few extra shallow rows at the front. U-shaped shelves seem like they would just be a hassle. It looks like part of the shelves are behind the doorway (to the right of the door), so one thing you might consider is placing items in that area facing sideways instead of facing forward. So stack the rows of cans that are off to the right of the door so that the row faces the left side of the closet instead of the front of the cupboard. I hope that makes sense. Our old house had some an area to the side of the door like that and it had extra short narrow shelves in that area and that's how I organized those. I think you could do that even if it's all on the same shelf, and it would be easier to see and grab the thing that are to the side of the door that way. If you have more food than you can fit in the pantry right now without the baskets, or you don't want to stack things, maybe move everything that won't fit right now into the unused cupboards that you mentioned were in a different part of the house.

My older kids (ages 13, 10, and 8 ) take piano lessons every other week from a high school girl who is an advanced piano student. They have never practiced consistently and generally only practice if I remind them, which doesn't happen consistently. I've tried a few different incentives to motivate them to remember themselves without much success. They'll practice without complaint as long as they just run through their songs once and then be done (which takes the 8 & 10 yo's about 5 minutes). I've been trying to get into a regular routine of having them each practice for 10 minutes a day. 13 yo will do it without a fuss when she's home at the time I try to have them do them. 10 yo needs a few reminders to keep practicing til the timer goes off. The 8 yo requires constant riding to keep playing...otherwise he'll stop and mess around and kill as much time as possible. It is not feasible for me to sit by them while they practice every day. I'm trying to decide if it's worth them continuing since they do so little practicing between lessons. The teacher says they're making some progress even without much practicing. They all like taking piano lessons and seem to enjoy playing, as long as they don't have to do much practicing. At what point do you decide that it's not worth paying for lessons if they aren't willing to spend time practicing?

*Please don't quote, I'll delete later. Really not looking to be told what a lousy mother I am because he keeps escaping.* My almost 3 yo is an escape artist. He loves being outside and will go to great lengths to get there. I've run out of childproofing options to keep him in (not to mention his older siblings frequently leave the doors open). The front door is childproofed and he can't get out it as long as no one forgets to close it. If someone forgets to close it, he's generally out the door before I can even get over to it to close it. The back door is a sliding door with the sliding part on the outside. We have a "childproof" lock near the top of the door, but he can unlock it by climbing up the back of a chair (the door is in the dining room), or using the end of a broom, or a toy sword, or other similar objects. If someone goes out it there's no way to re-lock it from the outside, so then he can escape. I try to enforce the older kids only going out the front door, but they still periodically go out the back, giving him another escape route. Our house has a brick wall separating the front and back yard and he can climb right over it on one side of the house, and climb over the gate on the other side. Yesterday he discovered that he can push things over to the basement family room windows and climb up to them and get outside that way. He likes to run down the sidewalk and play in anyone's sprinklers that are on, or run down to DD's friend's house at the end of the block, or chase bunnies. I think a neighbor potentially calling the police/CPS is more of a concern than his escapades being a safety hazard (due to very little traffic on our street which is not a through street, and good visibility as few people parking on the street, plus he stays on our side of the street). We had an incident a few days ago where most of my kids including the 2 yo were playing with the hose on the side of the house, and the 2 yo decided to strip and then bolt down the sidewalk right as a neighborhood patrol drove by (they're operated through the police department but staffed by volunteers). It took my older kids a minute to realize he was gone and when they went to get him he started screaming and wouldn't come back. They said the neighborhood patrol circled around and parked by the side of the road watching them. As soon as I heard him screaming I went out and got him and brought him inside. I had just checked on them a few minutes before this happened and he was playing in the hose with the others. The neighborhood patrol drove off after after I had him. I assume they didn't contact CPS as it's been a week or so and nobody's showed up at my doorstep. It's so frustrating that he keeps getting outside and there don't seem to be any other options for childproofing. Hopefully DH will add a wood fence on top of the brick wall to at least keep him in the back yard if he goes out the back. There's no way to contain him to one room inside the house to keep him from getting out (semi-open floor plan and he can climb any gate out there anyway). I'm thinking about getting one of those kids' geotracking devices to attach to his clothes, but that wouldn't keep him from getting out, it would just alert me when he does get out (assuming they work that well). Is there some way I'm not thinking of to try to keep him from getting outside?

I would like to carpet the hallways and the eat-in area. That would probably help a lot with the noise. Maybe interlocking carpet squares to put right over the tile would work. I'd hate to rip up the tile (it's something fancy, travertine or limestone I think) and I can't imagine DH would ever agree to do that. It's a bit of an odd layout and I don't think there's any way to put up more walls without it being really weird and obstructing the flow of traffic through the house. The noise doesn't seem echo-y to me, just really loud. Unfortunately the "semi" part of semi-open is just right so that it's not really very easy to keep an eye on the kids. DH says he'll take care of the wallpaper or hire someone to do it, so I guess I won't worry about trying to work on it. I do have nice pads under the rugs but would probably need a lot more rugs to maybe make a difference. I only have a 9x6 and a 3x5 now. I won't put one under the dining room table, noise or not, because...kids...so the only other place they could go is in the hallways.

He understands the cause and effect very well. The problem is that he LIKES the effect of getting a reaction from somebody else (he's said this in one form or another several times recently). He doesn't always enjoy it when they do something back to him, but in his mind, if they retaliate that's just another reason to do something else to him.

This might help. I'll have to try it.

It is generally not friendly teasing--they're doing it to annoy each other, and succeeding. I've told DH a few times that I wouldn't care if they gouged each others' eyes out as long as they didn't come crying to me about it (not really, but the general idea). But they spend all day tattle-taling on each other and expecting me to do something. I've tried telling them they need to handle it themselves, but they're pretty physical with each other so I decided letting them work things out themselves isn't a great idea. I'll try giving them chores when they bicker.

We moved into a new house at the end of last year. It's much larger than our old house, which is nice with a family of 8, and in town instead of out of town which is also nice. But I'm starting to wish that we hadn't bought it. At least 2000 square feet of the house is wallpapered. I only like the wallpaper in one room, and this wallpaper is glued on VERY well and is not going to come off easily. I've already tried the easy methods of removal with no success. I do not want to be stuck with this wallpaper forever, and I don't have hundreds of hours to spend getting it off (or the patience to do it). Also, this house is SO incredibly loud. The entire main level except the living room and master bedroom is tiled, and it's a semi-open floor plan, and we have 6 kids 13 and under, 5 of them boys, and I get easily overloaded by noise...it's bad. Between the tile (even the molding is tile), paneling/wainscotting in most rooms, large windows, a vaulted ceiling in the dining room, and the mostly open floor plan, I don't think it's possible for a house to be any louder. I would not have agreed to buy it if I'd know it was going to be so loud. The noise is really starting to wear on me. I've added some rugs and curtains and I can't even tell a difference. I literally cannot carry on a phone conversation without going into a bedroom and shutting the door if there's the slightest bit of noise upstairs, because I cannot hear anything the other person says. People talking in the living room can clearly hear anything someone in the dining room says, and there's an entire additional room separating the two (and the living room is mostly enclosed too). I'm so frustrated at being stuck with these issues.

My older 4 kids (13, 10, 8, and 6) literally spend all day every day doing things to aggravate each other. The 6 yo is mostly being aggravated by the others and not so much being an initiator, but the others are full-fledged "anything I can think of to do to my siblings I will" members. DS10 spit water on DD13 at the park today, so she dumped a bowlful of water on him when they got him. Now he's swearing vengeance on her. This is just one example of the many, many things they've done to each other just today. This goes on all.day.long every.single.day. I have not found a consequence that has any effect. Apparently the joys of causing your siblings to shriek outweighs any possible consequences mom can give. Has anyone dealt with this? Any suggestions on getting them to STOP (other than shipping them all off to boarding school, which often sounds like a fabulous idea if only I could get DH to agree).

Thinking ahead to high school credits... I'm planning on doing early modern American/world history for my younger kids next year, and I'd like my 8th grader to do that time period also. But that would mean she'd be doing modern American/world history in 9th grade. She needs 1 year of American, 1 year of world, and 1 year of a "3rd year social science" for the major universities in the state, so that's what I'm wanting to get on her transcript. (She only needs 2 credits in social sciences to fulfill state graduation requirements, and I'm planning on her having 4 credits, but I'd like to be able to check off the boxes for what the state universities require in case she decides to attend one of them. She is currently uninterested in college.) It seems like ancient and/or medieval/renaissance history could count towards world history, but where could I fit in another 1/2 credit of American history in if she only does 1/2 credit in 9th as part of modern history?

I’ve been debating about starting typing with him this year. I wonder if I could just use Touch Type Read and Spell and count that for spelling too. At least it would be non teacher intensive. He’ll hopefully be starting vision therapy soon, and my 6 yo needs OT so I’ll have to fit those in somewhere...and there’s only so much of me to go around.

My 10 yo has done through Level 8 of Barton. This past school year he reviewed all the spelling in Barton with a tutor because he'd apparently forgotten it all after finishing Level 8. He still does not apply it to anything he writes at all, and doesn't seem to remember or apply any of the rules even when we're trying to do spelling review. I don't feel like more Barton review is going to accomplish anything, so I think we need to try a different spelling program. I was thinking of either Megawords or Apples & Pears. My mildly dyslexic 13 YO has done several levels of Megawords and it has helped her some, but it seems like Apples and Pears might be a bit more geared toward younger kids. I just need something he'll do fairly willingly/won't consider too much work, and that can be done mostly independently if possible. I'm not sure how teacher-intensive Apples and Pears is. DD has done Megawords independently other than me dictating words to spell occasionally, but I'm not sure it was intended to be done that way.

I think in your shoes I would try tactfully asking the dentist if he could spend a bit more time explaining things as and after he does the exam. Seems worth a shot since the rest of the office is a good fit for you. Or could you choose just a new dentist and keep going to the current one for cleanings since you’re making separate appts anyway? Fwiw our dentist only schedules 1 exam per year, so only every other cleaning.

DS10 had a developmental vision exam done in November. The dr. said he had issues with tracking and something else (forgot what) and gave him a couple exercises to do at home. I asked her about follow-up and she said that when they seemed easy for him he was done and didn't need follow-up. Ok then... The exercises weren't difficult for him from the beginning so I think we need to move on to someone else. We got the game Q-bitz the other day and he thought it was great and played it for about 20 minutes and then complained that his head really hurt and said he was never going to play that again. Clearly he still has some vision issues. There is no one else in our city who does vision therapy. I found one doctor 90 miles away who offers it. It's basically an at-home program with follow-up every 3 months. I also found one doctor 3 hours away who offers it. Her program sounds much more like what I've seen others here describe, but it would definitely be a last resort because of the time and money investment. I was told that she normally recommends 30-36 visits, one visit a week or every other week, at $120/visit. That is crazy expensive and a 6 hr round trip with 6 kids is not very do-able either, certainly not a couple times a month. Is it worth trying out the doctor who lives 90 miles away? Are there any books out there with lots of exercises to do at home? He made a good bit of progress with tracking exercises his O.T. prescribed so maybe we could just do this at home?

I’d like to try a meal planning service. I tried one and liked the concept but my kids didn’t like the recipes. I need one that has easy, mostly whole foods, kid-friendly meals and is not super grain and dairy heavy. Some grains and dairy is ok, but every meal is too much.

I believe they did. I saw it on the boards first but I’m pretty certain that I received an email from them also. Sorry about your lost purchases. That does stink!

I’ll look into those cards more. Maybe they’d be good for a quick daily review. I only have one take off and run with anything kid, and that’s only when he wants to. The rest need lots of mom motivation which is exhausting and hit or miss. My 6 yo is a total spaz and I think he could really use ZoR (and some adhd meds but that isn’t going to happen).

Wondering if anyone can give feedback on the games at socialthinking.com. The games are called Navigating the Zones and Should I Shouldn’t I? This would be for my kids ages 6, 8, and 10. My 13 yo could probably use some too.

I don’t think this really counts as third-hand info as DH talked to the grandfather at the neighbors’ house shortly after it happened. I’m not sure who had the accident because DH thought he said his son but my boys who were with DH thought he said his grandson. But yes I don’t know any more than that.

My kids play with a neighbor family who lives a block away. I've never met either of the parents. DH has briefly talked to the dad once. On Sunday DH was talking to their grandfather who was visiting and he said there'd been an accident earlier in the day where someone (not sure whether it was the dad or the 8 yo boy) cut off two of his fingers with a table saw. I feel really bad for them, whichever family member it was, and I'd like to offer to do something for them, but it's a little awkward because I've never met the parents. I was thinking of asking if I could bring them dinner one night this week. Would that be weird to offer since I haven't met them? Or is it too late to offer something like that since it's been a few days since the accident? Also my boys are not on good terms with theirs anymore (as in, their boys aren't allowed to play with mine right now) due to general boy stupidity, although DD still gets along fine and plays with their daughter. That adds another layer of complexity to the whole thing.

I’d like to become a better singer, but don’t want to take voice lessons. Is there any way to do this without formal lessons?

Have you done a 4x saliva cortisol test? Low cortisol levels can cause extreme fatigue (btdt). The website Stop the Thyroid Madness has good info on adrenal fatigue and testing for and treating it.